Monday, January 26, 2009

Naoto Takenaka finally gives us a teaser for "Yamagata Scream"

by Chris MaGee

We've been following Natoto Takenaka's horror comedy "Yamagata Scream" at the Pow-Wow for a while now, in fact since the very beginning of the blog. In all that time very, though, little about film, that tells the story of a salaryman and a high school girl who disturb a centuries old burial mound in Yamagata Prefecture only to unleash a legion of samurai zombies, has leaked out to either the Japanese or English media. That's changed, at least somewhat, now that the first teaser trailer for "Yamagata Scream" has popped up at the film's official site, but even this reveals only a handful of shots from the film. The rest is made up of director and star Naoto Takenaka dramatically introducing his film. All talk and no action it seems.

I think there must be one of two things going on here. Either Takenaka is dead sick of internet spoilers and audiences knowing almost everything of what they'll get once they enter the theatres, so he's run a very tight ship to keep some surprises on hand for the fans, or he and Gaga Communications are trying to cover up the fact that they've got a real stinker on their hands. I'd like to believe that former, but something in my gut tells me it's the latter.

Well, see what you can of "Yamagata Scream" in the teaser at the link to the official site above or in a much larger version over at Twitch, the folks who broke the story. "Yamagata Scream is set to hit Japanese theatres later this year.